1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer for printing a picture, a figure or the like on a sheet such as cloth.
2. Related Background Art
As an example of prior arts, in a technique disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. 5-51637 (1993) (referred to as "prior art example" hereinafter), as shown in FIGS. 12 and 13, a cloth web 101 wound on a take-out roll 100a and a take-up roll 100b is directed to an endless belt 102 mounted around rollers 102a-102c, and, ink is discharged from an ink jet head 103 in response to image information, thereby printing an image.
An urging roller 104 for closely contacting the cloth web 101 with the endless belt 102 is supported by a support member 105 such as a lever and a drive mechanism 106 such as an air cylinder is connected to the support member 105. By actuating the drive mechanism 106, the support member 105 and the urging roller 104 can be shifted so that the urging roller 104 is retarded from the endless belt 102 to be spaced apart from the cloth web 102 or the urging roller 104 is urged against the endless belt 102 to closely contact the cloth web 101 with the endless belt 102. Further, a control device 107 is connected to the drive mechanism 106. After the endless belt 102 is stopped, the drive mechanism 106 is controlled by the control device 107 so that the urging roller 104 is retarded from the cloth web 101, and, after the endless belt 102 is operated again, the drive mechanism 106 is controlled by the control device 107 so that the urging roller 104 is urged against the cloth web 101.
However, in the apparatus according to the above-mentioned prior art example, since the urging roller 104 is merely urged against or separated from the endless belt 102, the following problem arises.
That is to say, after the urging roller 104 is urged against the cloth web 101 on the endless belt 102 by means of the drive mechanism 106, the endless belt 102 is operated. With this arrangement, since the urging roller 104 urges the same area of the cloth web 101 for a predetermined time period until the endless belt 102 is operated again, a streak is generated on that area of the cloth web. Further, there also arises a problem that unevenness of the close contact is apt to occur since the cloth web 102 is closely contacted with the endless belt 102 which is intermittently operated at a high speed.